Service Self-Reliance and Sustainability

In a Roma village of about 900, the residents are striving to become self-reliant and sustainable.

In the rolling rural area of Eastern Slovakia, this village has seen new homes built by the Roma families. Sixteen homes have been built with sixteen more under construction.

The village mayor will donate land for the Roma families to build a new home if they save €2000. An NGO will loan them €8000 and with the €10,000, all the materials to build a brick home are purchased.

The NGO provides a foreman to insure the house is built by code, but the family and friends must provide all the manpower to construct the house. The Roma family also must attend classes on building construction and finances.

The village provides a small plot of land to the family to build and own their home. One big problem - No running water.

Each of the hundreds of families walk down to a community water station. They fill plastic buckets as their only source of water for cleaning, laundry, cooking, and bathing. The mayor requested help with an LDS Charities water project to provide clean water to the residents.

During a meeting with our water specialist Errol Merkley, the village needed to accomplish certain steps. The mayor did follow through and the project was tentatively approved in March 2018.

A well has just been dug on the upper hillside, but there is much more work to be done to provide clean water to the villagers. Roma families may need to dig trenches to connect water to their homes.

This project truly involves service, self-reliance, and sustainability.